X-23 and Psylocke: Made in Blood
by Syren Callista
Summary: Laura Kinney was there when Elizabeth Braddock returned from the grave, and their paths crossed several times since then. In a time when Elizabeth is pushing people away Laura feels herself being drawn towards her. When this innocent fascination makes Laura follow the woman off of school grounds, the two come to find themselves side by side as a deadly enemy springs its trap.
1. Part One

Author's Note: This story roughly takes place before the events of Uncanny X-Force Volume 2 Issue 1, and after X-23's second miniseries. Pretend you are watching one of Fox's X-Men films and feel free not to brush up on continuity, I don't plan to reference any events!

Part One

The woman was sweating profusely. Slick beads rolled down her back as they made a frantic escape from the minute space between the woman's skin and the elastic cling of her royal blue sports bra. Each drop had mere fractions of a second to live a solitary life before encountering one of its predecessors, together pooling into a rivulet, streaming down the defined musculature of the woman's back until either falling to the floor, dislodged by her movement, or getting captured by her shorts. Unlike her top, the violet haired woman's shorts left no space in which sweat could escape its grasp, condemning it to be absorbed into the material.

Alone at the front of the mirrored studio, the woman's reflection revealed that she rarely looked at her reflected image. In her presence, it served primarily to give the others in the room a total vantage point to watch her body move seemingly effortlessly through the demanding routine. The minimal outfit worked in concert with the woman's exquisite body, honed by countless hours of work and effort that most people couldn't even fathom, and combined with her otherworldly beauty to provide one of the many reasons why Elizabeth Braddock's yoga class was typically filled. Which made this class, just like the past few, a bit of an abnormality. The last few days of the English mutant's instruction had unexpectedly left than half of the sweltering studio empty.

"Brian, _focus_!" her sharp voice rang out from the front, and for a moment her violet eyes snapped open and directed a narrow gaze at a young man who had been amid a smirk, and who now looked somewhere between chastised and terrified.

Perhaps the absences in the class that gave the remaining students room to spread out and remain uncrowded was not so unexpected after all. The sharp correction that the woman had just given was absolutely tame in comparison to some others that had come from her of late. Elizabeth Braddock's mutant gifts included telepathy, the ability to read and influence the thoughts of others around her. The actual amount of time she utilized that gift on her students can't be known with any certainty, but the simple possibility of its usage was warning enough for the students to try to keep focused and not let their minds wander in her presence. Yet the truth was that the woman also tended to influence the thoughts of those around her without having to utilize her mutant powers at all.

Elizabeth (Betsy, to those who knew her) was just an inch under six feet tall, and if her towering stature were not enough, she was beautiful by any objective measure. Her long, purple hair was surely the prize of whichever stylist had achieved the deep, attention capturing color. The woman's long, lean body looked as though it had been sculpted by an artisan to embody the intersectionality of strength, femininity, and unrivaled athleticism. Easy to see as a martial artist or a dancer, some would think her a bit too tall to be a gymnast, and she would likely be more than happy to show them how wrong they were in that assumption with her ability to flip over someone's head of equal height to her. And then there were her piercing, violet eyes, a color of which seemed unnatural, and yet showed no sign of enhancement. They looked as if they should glow in the darkness, and while they didn't, it wouldn't be altogether surprising if at some point they chose to.

Intimidating in stature alone, the woman became all the more so by reputation: a long-time member of various incarnations of the X-Men where she is known as Psylocke, Betsy Braddock had been through literal hell and back. There was a story to be told if one knew who to ask that said that she wasn't even in the body that she was born onto this Earth in. Yet judging by her recent rash of foul moods it would seem unwise to attempt to ask her herself about the truth of that story. Rumor had run its typical course in embellishing and building upon any actual truth, but there seemed to be a consensus that the ninja-trained, telepathic instructor had an exceedingly low tolerance for bullshit of late, and any student who crossed her did so at their peril. The green-eyed girl in the back corner of the room had no intention of crossing her.

Laura Kinney stood apart from the other students of Jean Grey's Institute for Higher Learning, the latest evolution in the school that once bore the name of Charles Xavier. Each student in the school brought with them their own unique story and hardships, and yet very few could rival Laura's own. A genetic clone of the infamous, near-immortal mutant known as Wolverine, Laura's past life included being raised in captivity and trained to be an assassin, an unstoppable machine of death and destruction at the direction of the highest bidder. Of the people in the sweltering yoga studio that had been heated to a scorching 100 degrees, Laura felt she had more in common with the instructor than any of the students.

She moved through the poses in almost perfect emulation of Betsy: she too had spent seemingly endless hours building her body, earning the strength and flexibility that rewarded her now. Her long hair was matted to her head with sweat and it left her forest green eyes to peek out between the narrow gaps that were left. Laura had ensured that she was well hydrated in advance of the class and it proved a wise decision, for while the towel that covered her mat was nearly soaked through she felt rather comfortable in the moist heat even after nearly an hour of exercise. The class was nearing the end and Laura was certain that several of the other students were feeling faint and nearing exhaustion, her incredible hearing allowing her to notice the change in respiration, the slipping and sliding hands and feet, as well as the muttered curses.

It was almost cruel then that Betsy decided to end the class on one of the most demanding poses she could imagine. The woman started in a simple enough headstand with her weight resting comfortably on her forearms. Then she slowly allowed her back to bend, bringing her feet down towards the floor in front of her, slowly, slowly stretching until her soles touched down on the floor in front of her head, her body nearly bent in two. This alone defeated most of the class, the heat, fatigue combining with the difficulty of the pose that made it difficult to maintain even the headstand, much less trying the backbend. From there Betsy lifted her feet back up, returning to the original headstand, before once more allowing her spine to bend. Moving into this pose was slower, far more careful, as she once more bent backwards, only this time her feet stayed much closer to her head, collapsing inward until her soles nearly touched the top of her head, and then did so as she fell into the _Sirsa Padasana._ A disapproving sound emerged from the woman as she observed the struggles and failures of student after student failed to match her.

Laura believed that she was the only one who performed it correctly besides Betsy herself, though she couldn't risk attempting to look. The very center of her soles lightly touched the top of her head. She could force more, but she already felt the tremble in her body as so many muscles worked to maintain the pose, and while she did not fear an injury by pushing for more, she knew she'd risk losing the form if it happened. She contented herself with maintaining the slight contact between her feet and the top of her head, and focused on the instructor herself. As Laura's eyes wandered over the woman's body, she resisted the urge to let her gaze linger in any way, and instead noted with slight dismay that Betsy's body did not have any noticeable tremble as she held the pose, making Laura even more aware of how her own body did. Her eyes tightened at her critical evaluation of herself, a spark of anger flaring and as she started to drift down a dangerous path of self-critique, she noticed the pair of violet eyes staring back at her in the mirror.

As Laura met Betsy's eyes in the mirror she found it hard to maintain her descent into the destructive state of mind that so often followed her perceived failures. It was a path that she had traveled down so many times that she could speed along it with her eyes closed and never falter. If her healing factor didn't prevent her from accumulating physical scars then her arms and legs would be decorated with an intricate tapestry of scarification, parallel scratches from unimaginably sharp blades, the highly visible adornments of someone who turned to self-harm. It had long been a method of coping and control for Laura, something that her slavers could not take away from her, something that gave her just a little bit of ownership of her body. She understood it was unhealthy in almost every way but she had not been able to conquer it thus far. And now, when she had already been thinking of turning to it in the next moment of privacy that she could find, Laura found those thoughts slipping away as she met Betsy Braddock's eyes in the mirror.

Betsy had not sought out Laura when she looked back at the class. The disapproving sound that she had made seconds ago had come in the wake of witnessing the failure of most of her class. Their inability to complete the difficult pose was not truly an indictment of her teaching ability, nor was it a fault of the students themselves: some bodies were simply less pliable than others, the limits of their flexibility decided long before they ever walked into her class. That she had chastised them at all was far more a mark of her current mood than anything else. As her eyes surveyed the battlefield and found student after student recovering in a resting pose or picking themselves up from where they fell, they finally found themselves matched on another pair looking back at her.

Betsy found Laura mostly a mystery. The girl gave away as little as she herself did. Betsy was aware of what she looked like at this point of the class, and she knew that fixing her gaze on a few students, male and female alike, would send their appreciative eyes fleeing in terror and cause their wandering minds to focus on something mundane and random in fear that her telepathy would expose the truth of what they were thinking about her. Yet in Laura Betsy could not sense this at all, the green eyed genetic spawn of her dear friend Logan resolutely held her eyes. Betsy might have perceived this as some type of challenge in some cases but with Laura she did not get this sense either. Laura was such a blank slate to her that Betsy almost gave in to the temptation to exercise her power to gain some insight into what the girl was thinking but in the end self-control prevailed.

As their mutual staring began to stretch beyond long seconds it entered Laura's mind that she had miscalculated in some way and was going to end up in the unenviable position of earning the woman's ire. But she found the risk to be worth it for this moment of connection with this woman who truly captivated her, and she dared to risk that wrath in order to maintain it even a moment longer. Laura was not sure just how long she had felt drawn to this woman, it felt in one moment so new and strange, and in the next like it had been there for so long. They shared several things in common although they'd never spoken of it. Betsy Braddock had also had her life stolen from her. Once upon a time she had also been the target of dark forces who stole from her not only her body, but very nearly her mind. She had traveled the nightmare paths of violence and felt the embrace of death, and Laura felt a strange connection there in threads of their tragic histories.

Her concern of inadvertently provoking the woman was soon proven to be unfounded as Betsy closed her eyes and began to come out of the pose, utilizing her well defined abdominals to pull her feet up towards the ceiling to regain the headstand that had begun the sequence. The woman easily separated her feet, scissoring them in the air, walking out of the headstand before turning to finally address the class. She had waited until dismissal time to address them all as a group.

"Disappointing work from most of you today," she began, her richly accented voice filled the class, pristine as if she spent each waking day on the streets of London, when in truth she had been in America for countless years.

"For the most part you all need to work on your stamina so that you may perform well at the end of the class as you start to tire. The battles we face are relentless, demanding, and our enemies will make no concessions to you if you're tired and nor will I. Come back, and do better."

She spoke as she walked through the sweating students towards the exit at the rear of the class. As she walked a halo of shimmering pink light with a brilliant white core flashed into existence and snared her rolled up towel from the front of the class. The pulsing energy seemed to be alive, glowing with barely contained power that almost seemed wasted on so mundane a task as lifting a towel from the ground, and yet it did so and brought the towel to her outstretched hand before disappearing as quickly as it had appeared.

"If you need advice on what you should be doing outside of class, speak to Laura and you might have a fighting chance of impressing me."

And then she was out the door of the studio, leaving a rush of cold air in her wake as the seal of the hot room was broken and allowed in a refreshing blast of relief from the relentless heat.

Laura's normal displeasure at having even a small spotlight shone on her was overshadowed by the praise from the woman that had come along with it. One of her very best defenses was going unnoticed, and in one sentence Betsy had effortlessly defeated it. The other students were already reluctant enough to engage with her and adding an air of 'teacher's favorite' was unlikely to improve her standing amongst them. That did not bother her; right now, nothing at all could. Had the woman read her mind, did she know just what Laura thought when she looked at her? It didn't matter. Dark thoughts for once a distant memory, Laura looked at the door that Betsy had exited through and it took her only long enough to roll up her mat before she followed.


	2. Part Two

Part 2

The biggest issue against the massive indoor shopping complex was that it was a nearly thirty-minute drive away from the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning, and that was only if you kept it well above the speed limit. Even with it being a bit of a trek for the students it didn't keep it from being one of their go-to destinations, especially on the weekends. Three sprawling levels crammed full of stores vying to compete with each other and the online marketplace. Glass elevators on all sides of the rectangular shaped building provided the easiest access through the levels, but could be avoided thanks to the stairs that led from the ground floor to the first floor, and a series of ramps that made travel between the second and third level seamless. The ramps and the stores on the upper two levels were positioned around a vast open center court which was filled with temporary kiosks and a huge event space that a temporary stage could be erected in, and enjoy terrific visibility from all over the mall.

Laura had followed Betsy Braddock to the mall following the conclusion of the class. She had plenty of time to get ready: it was nearly unheard of to go out after the class without a shower and she had never managed to master the art of a long and relaxing one. It helped that she did not have to worry about talking to anyone. Most of the students in the school found it easier to talk about her rather than _too_ her ignorant or uncaring of her being able to listen to every word.

"Have you ever heard her talk to anyone?"

"I don't think she _can_ talk."

"I've never even smile. She's always just…there."

Laura ignored it, as she always did. It would take the smallest effort, the tiniest bit of risk to put herself out there, to try to be friendly with the others, and so far, she just could not bring herself to do it. She had been told by the few people she actually interacted with that she should put herself out there more. She never told them that she felt more comfortable, even safer, in a fight for a life rather than risking allowing herself to get close to others. Too much death had followed her, too much had been taken from her. And so Laura maintained her silence and her solitude, showering and dressing alone.

By the time she headed out of the school it was still early afternoon, but she was dressed as if she had no plans to return before morning. A short black, leather jacket was worn over a black spaghetti-strap tank top, both of which ended at the bottom of her ribcage, leaving a wide swath of her stomach bare. The front of the tank bore an image of an ornate birdcage with a skeleton of a bird resting on the perch inside of it.

A tartan-patterned miniskirt rested on her hips, an inch below her exposed navel. Predominantly red interspersed with black, white stripes established the distinctive grid pattern. A thick, double-banded belt of black leather with dull steel studs and buckles was worn slightly askew on her hips, angled lower on the left. Thin new leggings were stretched enough that her pale skin could be seen through it, save where the printed Christian imagery of saints (right leg) and crosses (left) crawled up from out of her calf-length boots to stretch to just above her knees. Dark brown fingerless leather gloves completed her outfit, effortlessly combining with her fair skin and straight dark hair to affect a timeless goth punk look.

The green-eyed girl had lost the target of her pursuit in the parking lot, though in truth she had spent no real effort to maintain contact with her. Betsy had clearly come to the mall for a reason other than attempting to avoid her pursuer, and Laura had no doubts in her own ability to reacquire her target even in as challenging an environment as the packed mall. And packed it was. Immediately upon entering Laura's senses were bombarded with an all-out assault that would have been staggering had she not been well prepared for it. The scents alone bordered on overwhelming: deodorants struggling in vain to mask the aromatic scents that made each person unique, the sweet, thick clouds of perfume emanating from the eleven stores that sold them, and the numerous eateries whose kitchens were all in full swing. The sounds of hundreds of voices melding together in merry conversation, the machinery powering the escalators, elevators, and air conditioning, as well as the thudding bass coming from center court where some type of event was taking place. It all combined for a challenge that Laura welcomed, a self-assigned exercise to keep herself sharp.

She effortlessly joined into the flowing current of shoppers and became part of the group, blending in with nothing giving away her much different purpose. When Laura was designed there had been initial pushback against her very creation – the money man behind her creators had wanted to duplicate and improve upon the successes of Weapon X himself, Logan. There was initial disappointment that Logan could not be recreated through cloning and that the only viable way to utilize the genetic material they had was through the creation of a female embryo and there were some who had viewed her existence at all to be a failure. Of course, everyone who thought that and indeed everyone who was involved with her creation were now dead, many by her own claws. They had lacked vision and not understood her full potential, not appreciated that they had created a child who would become one of the world's most dangerous assassins by the time she was a teenager. Now, as Laura made her way through the mall, there was nothing about her that would alert the hundreds of people in the mall that one of the most dangerous killing machines ever designed was walking amongst them.

Laura was very used to the looks that she tended to draw and quite aware that many males and females alike found her body to be very pleasing. It was not idle speculation on her part: she could easily hear remarks made about her as she passed, she was adept at finding those who risked openly staring at her, and with close proximity and enough time she could often detect other physiological signals of a sexual response to her presence. It was a useful skill set to have and one that she took advantage of when the situation called for it. Despite this it was a rarity for Laura to actually be approached and it often took a bold person to make the leap. It was not that she played at being scary or intimidating, there was just something that radiated from her that made her seem aloof and unapproachable.

Those qualities proved to be useful now as she made her way through the mall in search of her quarry. Laura's path would seem random to anyone watching her as she sought out Betsy's scent in the crowded complex, or a glimpse of that purple hair. She was mindful to the way that the air circulated through the immense space of the mall and she sought out a centralized area where the air was more still. She was near the center court as she became still and took some deep inhalations through her nose, sifting through the countless scents in search of one particular one. As she sought out the one of most interest to her, she let her eyes wander towards the stage that had been erected in center court and noted the preparations for some type of performance which she guessed to be musical in nature as evidenced by the array of large speakers that had been set up. It almost made her wince in anticipation of the flood of noise that was soon to bombard her sensitive ears.

Betsy's scent reached Laura's nose. It was faint, diffused, but still distinct to where Laura could never mistake it, and its discovery sent an electric thrill through her. Laura began to move again, navigating the crowd that had grown even in the brief time that she had stopped. Like a shark gliding through water Laura moved the sea of people, twisting here and there to avoid bumping into anyone. Walking in the center court was quickly becoming harder as the number of those standing by to watch began to eat away at the room for those simply wanting to traverse from one side of the mall to the other.

As Laura sought an artery that would take her in the direction she sought, she passed by an Asian man who caught her attention. He was taller than her, which didn't say all that much, and his fitted grey t-shirt revealed solid, functional muscle that she could appreciate. But what drew her attention more was the scar on his neck. Thin and perfectly straight, it was deeper near the left side of his neck and shallow as it moved towards his throat, and it immediately made her think of the mark that would have been left had he been slashed across the throat and barely survived it. She caught a glimpse of his dark brown eyes and a shaggy mop of black hair before he passed her and disappeared in the opposite direction that she was headed.

Laura paused for a moment and tested the air again and once more found Betsy's scent. She adjusted her path accordingly and found herself walking further from center court as a sudden round of cheers and clapping informed her that the musicians had taken to the stage. Her relief to be moving further from that noise proved to be short-lived. She passed several more storefronts before she saw something that made her heartrate leap upwards. Walking towards her was an Asian man in a tight grey t-shirt with a shaggy mop of black hair on his head. The sense of deja-vu was immediate, yet rather than meet his eyes Laura sought out his neck and when she saw the scar there at his throat time seemed to slow. She estimated that he would need to take ten steps before he would be close enough to attempt to grab her, less to use an electrostatic weapon like a Taser, and none if he were to planning to shoot her with a firearm. They continued towards each other and Laura's gait changed slightly, weight moving from the balls of her feet to further down, sinking deeper into her hips in preparation of resisting a grab and pull once they were close enough. She was resigned to reacting for fear she had made some mistake and this man posed no threat to her. A moment later would tell.

The man passed her without taking any type of movement towards her, and Laura let her eyes lift to meet his. In that moment she was completely certain that there was no recognition there, and he continued on towards the way that she had come without missing a step. Laura did not look after him, but she did quicken her pace, and as she passed a stairway leading up to the second level she had to do a quick pivot in order to take it. She scaled the carpeted steps quickly, coming to the first landing that was home to a few small stores. Questions filled her head: had this been the same man twice? Had he for some reason doubled-back around her and she just saw him twice? This seemed unlikely for several reasons, and as she replayed the memory she felt certain that the men's scars were similar, yet not the same. She turned to continue up to the second floor, the second set of stairs taking her out of sight of anyone who was on the first set. There she stopped and listened for just a moment, ascertaining that she wasn't being followed. Satisfied, she ascended to the second level.

From where the stairs took her to on the second level of the mall she had a few choices of direction: east towards the near end of the mall and one of the anchor stores that marked the end of the complex, south towards the far end of the mall and roughly where she came from, or northwest towards the upward angled ramp that would cut across the mall's center court and lead up to the third level. She elected for the ramp, noting that its already held numerous people who had opted for the elevated view of the performance taking place down below. Her steps came quicker now as she reached the ramp, abruptly stopping when she found a gap between two people that she could fit into along the railing.

Laura took the spot, nudging her shoulder into a man just a little older than she was, his immediate protest at the jostling abandoned when he took a good look at her. She ignored him completely, her green eyes locked on the crowd below, searching with an intensity that dissuaded him from whatever he was working up the courage or indignation to say. As Laura scanned the crowd she took full advantage of the elevation, and her search was made far easier by the fact that much of the crowd below was static, their attention fixed on stage. Laura found the man in the grey shirt in seconds, he was walking in a wide counterclockwise circle around the breadth of the gathered crowd. Then her eyes roamed again and she found the other man in the grey shirt on the opposite side of the crowd a moment before he circled behind the stage and out of her sight.

The confirmation that she was not seeing double was of no comfort to her, and Laura began searching amongst the gathered masses faster. Were these clones? Advanced cybernetics? Twins? It had been dumb luck that she had walked past the twins in close enough proximity to mark them, had she not there was nothing about either that would have earned them more than a moment of consideration. But Laura had seen far too much to ignore it, and that chance encounter had given her a glimpse into something more. Now as she searched the crowd more people began to stand out to her, a few men here, a pair of women on the second level, each pair moving about independently, each with a match in attire, hair, and possibly more. They moved differently from everyone around them and the hunter in Laura recognized it in these people. Her only certainty was that they were not seeking her, she was outside of the wide net that they had cast over center court. But who were they hunting for, and who was directing them?

Laura had picked her vantage point deliberately for its top-down look over center court and it occurred to her then to scan along the third floor to see who else might have taken a similar position. What drew her attention were the two mall security officers in an overwatch position on the third floor. The mall outfitted them in uniforms that closely resembled that of actual law enforcement, yet they were typically only armed with sidearms if they were off-duty police, and a pepper-spray. One of them was holding a long rifle, an unusual design capable of delivering a dart with a chemical payload over a fair distance. With no wind to account for Laura was certain that if he was a decent marksman he could hit a stationary or slow moving target even in a crowded environment like this.

She immediately moved off of the railing and began walking up the ramp towards the third floor her eyes now sweeping the area in front of her to try to find anything else that she might have missed. There was nothing for her to hear, it was much too loud with the band performing, but she could compensate for this well enough. When she reached the third floor she found the two men had separated: the rifleman was in a good vantage point to shoot down into the center court yet was not sighting down the rifle, the other was now moving now to the opposite end of the floor. Was there another shooter she couldn't see? If there was, the two could easily establish a crossfire on the area beneath them. As she focused on the shooter she noted his proximity to a doorway labeled ' _Employees_ Only' that lead to maintenance and access corridors behind the individual stores, and likely a reliable escape route.

Reaching the third floor, Laura started moving in behind the shooter in the mall security uniform. She was mere steps away from him when she caught Betsy's scent again, strong enough that it made her spin in order to seek out the source. Her eyes darted around and in the quick search and caught a glimpse of purple hair before it disappeared, the owner standing on the escalator that descended from the third floor to deposit down in the edge of the court on the first floor. When Laura turned back around the shooter was lifting his rifle to his shoulder, and Laura immediately knew that he would have a clear shot as riders came off of the escalator.

Whereas before time had seemed to slow down, now it seemed to move faster. Laura came up behind the shooter, grabbed two handfuls of his hair and pulled back sharply. The moment she pulled she pivoted and planted her left leg behind his. The force of her pull, and the back of his knees hitting the solid resistance of her body didn't give him the slightest chance. His body elevated, legs finding no purchase in the air, and his full weight came crashing down on the back of his head and shoulders with the extra force of Laura's strength. The crack of his head was louder than the sound of his rifle smashing into the ground, and Laura was already moving before it had come to rest. It had happened so fast and that those random mallgoers nearby who happened to see it were still struggling to process what they had just seen. Laura was halfway across the floor by the time the first Good Samaritan's were crowding around the fallen shooter.

Laura rushed through the oblivious crowd and caught sight of what she had dreaded: a second shooter, rifle already to the shoulder, aiming down into the crowd. She knew without looking who the target was now, and there was no way for her to warn Betsy.

"Shoot!" she heard a voice, and she could only imagine that it was a spotter, the other man who had broken off from the first shooter.

Breaking into a dead sprint when she had a clear path to the shooter, Laura came at him directly from his side. She dove low, all of her weight thrown forward into her boots, and when they impacted the shooter just below his left knee she was rewarded the unmistakable sound of it dislocating. The sound of her hitting him came in almost perfect sync with the sound of his rifle firing, highly pressurized air sending the projectile out almost silently except for those with hearing such as hers. Laura's momentum caused her to fly out from under the crumpling shooter, her hip hitting the tile first, her body sliding along before she rotated to her back. Before she could get to her feet the spotter was on top of her, throwing a wicked kick that would have bounced her head off of the ground.

Laura twisted her body just enough that the kick missed, the foot slamming into the floor beside her head. She rolled to her knees behind him, forcing him to spin to face her again. The moment he squared up to her again she drove her fist into his crotch, his breath leaving him in a gasp. He started to double over and she took that moment to leap to her feet, driving the top of her head hard into his face. The crack of a nose sounds very much like the sound of two skulls crashing together, but Laura could discern the difference. This time he was on the ground with her standing above him, blood gushing from his ruined face, before she smashed her booted foot into his forehead, bouncing the back of his head off the smooth floor.

A sound drew Laura's attention back to the second shooter, and she caught a glimpse of him out of the corner of her eye pulling himself up on the edge of the railing, still holding his rifle, attempting to both aim at her while at the same time compensating for his knee which could no longer hold any of his weight. She closed the distance on him faster than he would have thought possible. Once she was close her right hand shot out across her body, using her momentum and her weight to force the wavering barrel down and away from her. She twisted into the movement, momentarily exposing her back to him, but only long enough for her to slam her left elbow up and back over shoulder, the point catching him directly in the eye socket. The rifle clattered to the ground as the man crumpled to the ground, the impulse to clutch his face costing him the support he needed to stay on his feet. As he fell Laura took the opportunity to look over the edge down to the first floor and what she saw momentarily froze her.

Betsy was just at the bottom of the escalator, a dart held in her hand. Laura's brief hope that the telekinetic-telepath had been able to detect the attack coming and stop the projectile was dashed when she saw the woman sway as she looked around. No, surely the woman had just pulled the dart out from wherever it had struck her. This wasn't a Hollywood filmmakers view of violence: Laura knew the dart would not render the other woman instantaneously unconscious, but that she was already disoriented spoke volumes to its potency. Laura widened her gaze and saw what she had feared as the net that she had stumbled onto began to collapse around Betsy. She wondered for a moment if identical twins read similarly to telepaths, especially if they were focused intensely on the same goal? And in the crowded center court Laura knew Betsy couldn't risk fully unleashing her telekinesis.

Before she could make a move towards the escalator Laura heard a hard footstep behind her and threw herself hard to the side, spinning off of the rail as a kick that had been aimed at the small of her back smashed into the glass hard enough to spider-web it. Her new attacker was one-half of one of the matched pairs below who must have detected the disturbance above, or was alerted to it by another method. Taller than her by several inches, the difference between him and the shooting team was on full display as he smoothly reset from his missed attack. He pulled a slender hilt from his rear pocket and a quick flick of his wrist added an extra foot of length to the baton before he swung it at her head. Laura bent her knees just enough to dip her head beneath it and then quickly sidestepped, putting her back towards the railing, giving herself just a few inches of backward space before she'd be against it.

The fight was a blur to the stunned crowd now watching it: the baton swiped through the air and Laura was never at the end of the strikes. The man's free hand followed the swipes with strikes, which Laura absorbed on her forearms. He seemed stronger, each block moved her body, but she never seemed off-balance, and he never landed a clean blow. When he finally threw an overhand strike of the baton that would hit the side of her neck as it came in diagonally towards her body, Laura twisted to the side and was rewarded by a sharp CLANG of the baton striking the top of the railing instead. In that split second that he was forced to recoil from hitting the immovable railing Laura struck back finally, fists and knees coming in a flurry. Her opponent was good, but even with all that he managed to block his face was still left bleeding from where she had landed blows. Their positions were reversed now with his back towards the railing, and for a moment Laura looked past him, trying to get a glimpse of Betsy down below. Laura saw the woman fighting against six, no, seven attackers down below, but before she could see more she was cracked across the face with the baton.

Laura was spun around by the force of the blow and it took her a moment to refocus. She felt the hot splash of blood pouring down the side of her face from just beneath her hairline from where she was cut open by the baton. Her skin itched, almost like it was crawling, and then burned as the wound knitted back together in less than two seconds. She saw the surprise register on the man's face as he saw the hard-earned product of his work disappear right before his eyes. In his moment of distraction Laura leapt at him, throwing all of her weight into his upper body. Her knees hit his chest, her hands clasped the back of his head, and he was already being flung backward into the railing. The moment he hit it Laura twisted, not letting him go, and for a moment felt the weightlessness as her body sailed over the railing. The moment she had leapt at him they were both destined to go over, she just ensured that she was going to be on top for the fall. He let out a cry as they tumbled the thirty feet to the ground, Laura didn't make a sound. Not until they hit the ground with a sickening thud.

Laura awoke to the sounds of screams and too many voices, and not knowing where she was. She was face down on a cold tiled floor, and in a hot pool of fast cooling liquid that her nose told her was blood. Her whole body ached as if she'd been hit by a car, something she couldn't remember. She pushed herself up and opened her eyes, looking around to a sea of faces and another fresh round of screaming. There was a man's body right next to her and from the pool of dark blood beneath his head she knew he was likely dead. Her body started to heal as she looked around, trying to process where she was, bombarded with noises, scents, so much stimulation. Then her healing factor fixed her traumatized brain and memory flooded back into her. _Betsy._

To the amazement of the crowd that had gathered around to gawk at what had surely seemed like two very dead, or at least very badly injured people, Laura got to her feet. The side of her head that had hit the ground when she landed was soaked in her own blood, but with her dark hair it mostly just looked wet. The same couldn't be said for where it was on her face where it was vivid and bright against her otherwise pale skin. Those around who were snapping pictures and video would have a startling view as the bruising on her face vanished in the seconds it took her to regain her feet. She spun around, searching, listening, hearing no sounds of fighting, struggling, or screams, no sign of Betsy fighting her attackers. Fighting through all of the meaningless distractions, Laura searched frantically around and then finally found what she was looking for.

The crowded parted for her before she had to push through them and she sprinted towards the nearest 'Employees Only' access corridor. The moment she exploded through the doors the sounds of the actual mall were deadened and she could hear fast moving footsteps from deeper in the tunnel-like corridors, and the scent of Betsy was impossible to miss. She heard voices speaking in Japanese ahead:

"She's not breathing!"

"Yes, she is."

"We can't risk the antidote until we have her outside!"

"The other one is up, she's coming!"

The scent was already everything that Laura needed but the sounds just helped. Stealth was no longer of any need, she didn't care if they heard her coming, and as she tore around the corner once more time seemed to slow for her. Seven people were ahead of her: two had Betsy's limp body between them, carrying her quickly towards the end of the corridor where it opened to a receiving dock large enough to admit multiple tractor-trailers for deliveries to the mall. The other five were waiting for her: two females, three males. The women were twins, as were two of the males. The third male was the twin of the one she had thrown down from the top floor of the mall. Each of them carried at least one bladed weapon, their curved blades unmistakable weaponry of the group known as The Hand. The hallway was just barely wide enough for them all to stand shoulder to shoulder across from each other.

Laura ran to meet them and just when it seemed she was going to foolishly run head first into the ends of their blades she changed directions: she took one springboard step off of the wall and vaulted into the air. A loud ' _snikt'_ sounded as two adamantium-coated claws tore through the skin between the knuckles of her hands as she leapt over the front line of her attackers, and as she came down towards the furthest one she stabbed both sets of claws into his chest. The claws, honed to a razors' edge and coated in the unbreakable metal cut through his body like it was paper, and he was dead before he hit the ground. Laura landed atop him and rolled off, her claws creating sparks as they slid along the ground. She came up to her feet and once more was racing after the two who were dragging Betsy, leaving the other four now to chase her.

One of the men perceived the threat and dropped Betsy, whirling to face Laura with a blade the length of a machete in his hands. He swung at her head at the precise moment where her steps would have taken her close enough to bury the edge in the side of her neck. But Laura had dropped to her knees a moment before that, and as the blade flashed over her head she twisted and swiped across the back of his legs with her claws, the blades sinking in as they shredded his hamstrings. She had already turned away and leapt back to her feet by the time he hit the ground, and the one dragging Betsy was left alone, his allies still needing time to reach them. Laura was already cartwheeling when the last man dropped the telepath, and she used her momentum to flip forward through the air. Her knees hit his chest as she came out of the flip, the force driving him down, and her claws stabbed down as they hit the ground. The claws went through the front of his skull and pierced through to the back, forcing Laura to pull hard to extract the tips from where they'd lodged in the ground.

The others were almost upon her and Laura paused a moment to focus on Betsy, listening for and not finding her heartbeat. She reached into the jacket pocket of the man she'd just killed and found a slender case inside. Laura snatched it out before rolling off of him, turning to face the remaining ninjas that the Hand had sent for Betsy. In the course of reaching Betsy Laura had killed or disabled three of the seven and exhausted the element of surprise. The four remaining warriors faced Laura warily, no fear in their eyes but rather a necessary respect for the decimation she'd effortlessly inflicted on their ranks. They might not have known her, but they knew the claws by reputation and had an idea of what they were up against.

And Laura knew The Hand. There was a time where she would have enjoyed fighting these dark warriors on different terms, when no other lives hung in the balance. But this wasn't that time. She unzipped the case that she had retrieved from the dead man and found the capped auto-injection device inside. You didn't use tranquilizers strong enough to drop a human in minutes without carrying antidotes with you: misjudge the dosage and you risked killing them. They had taken great pains to capture Psylocke alive: their mystic methods gave them limited shielding against telepaths, they'd used twins to conceal their numbers, attacked her in the most populated venue possible, and initiated the attack from afar. They wanted her alive. So did Laura.

They attacked her as one, just as she knew they would. Laura picked her poison and moved with them: her claws flashed through the air, deflecting the blades attacking her from the front. She twisted her body slightly so that the stab aimed at the back of her neck instead buried into her shoulder, a far more desirable location even if it was no less painful. The pain from the blade buried in her shoulder gave her a little extra pop as she spun and kicked the other attacker who was coming at her from behind. That woman lifted her arm to deflect the kick, a sound defense, until another ' _snikt!'_ preceded the single claw that shot out of Laura's booted foot. The claw stabbed into the side of the woman's neck, tearing into her carotid artery. Before she could pull her foot claw free, the knife was pulled out of her shoulder.

Laura retracted that claw back into her foot with a sharp ' _snakt'_ and whirled, once more using her claws defensively, the knives of the attackers sliding off of them with the shrieking sound of metal on metal. With another of their ranks down and their circle broken, Laura tore into them. She swiped at a wrist holding a blade and sent it flying, silencing the scream of pain with the other set of claws through the heart. The moment the remaining two attackers turned defensive, Laura launched herself at them, their attempts to dodge her claws lasted only long enough for her to get close enough where it was no longer possible. The last one fell when she stabbed her claws through his thigh, and followed it with an upward strike that plunged her claws up from under his chin. She did not look to see if they exited out the top of his head. She retracted the claws of both hands, the skin healing over instantaneously.

Laura took no time to catch her breath, verifying that she had not broken the auto-injector in the fight. She ran to Betsy's side and turned the woman over, stopping to listen for a moment. Her heartbeat was there but it was faint, not what it should be, even sedated. Laura hurriedly removed the cap from the autoinjector, aimed it and stabbed it into Betsy's thigh, the sharp easily piercing her jeans, the medicine flowing into the large muscle of the thigh. Her urgency was two-fold: it wasn't just the other woman's weakening heartbeat, but also the urgent cries for help that she heard coming from down the corridor, one of the assailants that she had not taken the time to kill. Her mistake.

Now as she knelt over Betsy she had mere moments to catch her breath. She reached down and her hand hesitated for a moment before she gently touched the unconscious woman's face with her fingertips and carefully brushed strands of purple hair away from the woman's eyes. When her fingers touched the Japanese woman's skin it left light streaks of fresh blood on her skin. It made Laura flinch, and she moved her fingers to the side of Betsy's neck, pressed, and counted the pulse. Relief filled her as she felt it and knew already that it was higher than it had been. She allowed her fingers to linger there a few seconds longer as she heard a vehicle fast approaching from outside of the dock. Tires squealed, and the sound was enough to tell her it was a larger vehicle, and there was no surprise on her face when a small box truck began to rapidly back into the dock.

The rear door of the truck rolled out, and a veritable flood of hooded, red-suited figures poured out of it. The ninjas that made up the ranks of The Hand looked every part like the ancient warriors of legend, down to the short swords that they now brandished. Their traditional garb would have been out of place inside the mall itself, but now they'd thrown such pretense out. Laura didn't bother to count their number, it didn't matter anyhow. She did her best to ignore to ignore the aches throughout her body from the throb in her head to the fresh pain where she'd been stabbed in the shoulder. Her extraordinary healing abilities left her looking intact, save the still wet blood splattered across her dark clothing, her hair, the side of her face, and the tear in her jacket. No outer evidence was left of the wounds that she had already sustained, the miracle of her gift. But her body remembered what had happened to it, and she would carry phantom pains for weeks. Before that, she had to make it through the next few minutes.

Laura stepped over Betsy's prone body and she balled her hands into fists. She extended her claws slowly this time, feeling the razor-sharp metal slice through the skin between her knuckles. The pain was sharp, immediate, and in a terrible way comforting. In her life so much had been taken from her, and yes, the metal that coated those very claws had been forced upon her. Despite that Laura had made a choice to stop being the victim and part of that was reshaping her reality. They were tools now to use as she wanted, the freedom to make her own choices and forge her own path. And now she had to use it all to defend what she wanted most.

Faced with the horde of ninjas in front of her Laura stopped thinking, at least in the way that normal human beings process thoughts. She went to a place even deeper than the horrors her captors had inflicted upon her. In her mind the attackers each had the face of one of the men who had tortured her, abused her, stole her childhood and her innocence. Her genetic father had to fight constantly against the blind rage and the fury it brought. Laura gave in to hers.

For the first time, she added her voice to the battle, breaking the self-imposed silence that so often surrounded her. It was less a growl than a roar, and with it came the slash and tearing of her unbreakable claws driven by her unrelenting will to see them cut through anything before her whether it was steel or flesh. This time she could not come through unscathed, but her opponents couldn't repair themselves like she did. The receiving dock became the site of what looked to be a massacre, the sounds of nightmares, of blades digging into flesh, clanging off each other, and the screams of those who came to be on the ends of her claws.

Laura was battered, stabbed, sliced, and not once did she stop. She changed levels, moved unpredictably, brought all of her weapons to bear. Every time she was cut she made sure that three others were brought down with her. When she was forced to a knee when a blade stabbed into her thigh she stabbed her claws into the chest of the closest warrior within reach and tore him from sternum to naval as she used his body as leverage to pull herself back to her feet, a swipe of her other hand amputating the wrist holding the sword in her thigh, which she then ripped free from her body. The blood on the floor was making it slippery for all of the combatants, and Laura used it to her advantage, leaping onto the shoulders of one, stabbing her claws through his neck, before immediately springing off of him onto another. She ping-ponged between three in this way, the last one she landed on managed to stab her through the stomach as she came down. She in turn buried all four claws through his ribcage, and as he went limp beneath her she stabbed into his chest again, four short quick punches until there could be no doubt he was dead.

Laura rose to her feet and let out a small grunt as she closed her fist around the hilt of the blade that had been plunged into her abdomen and pulled it back out. The wound took longer to heal, her healing factor very taxed by the accumulation of stabs she had taken: the cuts healed quickly still, but the stabs, especially those that hit organs, they took a toll. She took stock of the plentiful amount of Hand warriors still standing, even with the ground littered with the bodies and parts of those she had already slayed. As one they surged towards her, and now Laura gritted her teeth as she prepared for the pain about to be inflicted upon her. Just as she leapt into the closest one, claws extended before her, she thought she saw a flash of fiery pink energy rippling around a solid white center.

And then she was in the sea of bodies, their fists, their blades tearing at her, ripping at her, her claws plunging into their soft bodies, everywhere she swung them finding something to rip apart, the smell of fresh blood endlessly renewed again and again. The screams she silenced were replaced with other new ones. She just focused on these, not on the unrelenting stabs into her body, unwilling to think about it, not allowing herself to think about stopping. Even as the horde threatened to pull her down, to collapse her body under their weight.

Then it was over. The stabbings stopped, the fresh pain stopped, the crushing weight on her back was lifted off. Laura lifted her head and saw three bodies held aloft above her surrounded in a haze of that pink-white energy. Then they separated, only to be smashed together with a sickening force, then tossed aside as casually as children discarded their toys that no longer amused them. Laura twisted around to look and saw her then: Betsy held a glowing sword of that same psionic energy that powered her telekinesis. Laura withdrew her claws from the throat of the ninja she had not remembered impaling and watched Psylocke cut through all that remained of The Hand. Laura had seen Betsy fight like dancing water, flowing effortlessly through a pitched battle as if she'd rehearsed it endlessly. Now she saw the pure destructive power of her telekinesis, the likes of which their enemies had no defense for. And then it was over.

The dock reeked of death and it looked no different. The red garb of the Hand someone muted the full impact of the carnage that had been left, but only by a little bit. It was like something out of a nightmare with little sense to be made from it, and an impossibly daunting task for someone to put together just what had happened, and clean up in its wake. The police response to the disturbance was escalating and Laura could hear the first teams making their way down the corridors that would lead them to the dock. After it all Laura had no desire to deal with them and it was this that made her push herself up to her feet. So much of her skin was splattered with gore, but her clothes had come through much better, the blackness masking most of it, save for where it was ripped. Her intact skin hid the hurts that she had taken, but the countless tears in her clothing told the truth of it.

"They're coming," Laura spoke, her voice surprisingly soft, at least from what she had been told. Many people expected her to have a deeper voice, gruff like Logan's, maybe. It always surprised people to hear her speak for the first time and at some point she might take it as a cue to do it more often.

Betsy Braddock had not had a relaxing afternoon. The reverie of her day had been broken by a sharp needle in her leg, and from then the memories became fuzzy. She had awakened to the sounds of swords, screams, and death, her body on fire, her heart thudding in her chest from an adrenalin overload. All it had taken was for her to see the unmistakable garb worn by the Hand's warriors to know what had happened, to realize how close they had come to capturing her. And then she saw Laura, the dark center in the sea of red warriors, her claws tearing through them with a viciousness that would make Logan himself nod in approval. She was getting hurt, overwhelmed, and yet she would not stop unless their blades pinned her to the ground. When Betsy had been able to pluck that thought out of one of the minds focused on her defender, well, she simply couldn't have allowed that to happen. And now they stood looking at each other across a sea of bodies, the last two standing on the impromptu battlefield that had been made of a weekend afternoon.

"Of course they are, you only threw yourself and a man three stories down into the middle of a mall and then picked yourself up," Betsy responded curtly, stepping over bodies to walk towards Laura, unaware of how harsh the tone of her voice was. "That sort of thing draws a lot of damned attention," she snapped at the girl.

"I won't let them see us, they've more than enough to busy themselves with here as it was," Betsy went on. And true to her word, as six of the local officers swept into the dock and began to witness the carnage in front of them, their eyes and more importantly their guns passed over Laura and Betsy as if they weren't even there. Laura didn't question this, nor how the woman knew what had happened out in the mall. Telepaths were diligent in finding answers when they needed them and one of the world's most powerful was staring at her.

"Were you _following_ me, Laura?" Betsy asked her directly, accusation nearly as thick as her English accent. "I do not need a shadow, nor do I need a protector. You are a student, and you of all of them should know better than to leave three dozen chopped up bodies in your wake."

Laura stopped listening to the words at some point, the anger that was being directed at her was the same that she'd been so relieved to avoid back at the yoga studio. It wasn't meant for her, not really, or at least she didn't think it was. She had known anger, felt it threaten to consume her, felt the temptation to let it lash out at those around her. But she had learned how to save it, hold it, and use it when she truly needed to. She used it against those who had hurt her, tortured her, taken what precious little she had away from her.

"…..why?" she heard Betsy saying.

Why what? Why had she been following her? Why had she thrown herself into a fight that she was not guaranteed to win, one merciless killer against a flood of merciless killers? Did she really not know, Laura wondered, as she searched the woman's piercing violet eyes for any hint that this was a game, that somehow, she'd been able to hide it. In that moment of looking up at Betsy Laura felt truly afraid for the first time that she could remember. A fear that she hadn't felt when staring death in the face, when blades of swords passed within an inch of piercing her heart.

Laura struck with the suddenness and force that she'd used to get herself to this very place. She put her hand behind Betsy's neck, pulled her in as much as she lifted herself up and kissed her. She held her breath, wishing that time would slow, that she could linger on each and every thing, the silky feel of the woman's hair on the exposed tips of her fingers, the softness of her lips and the gentle way they yielded to the pressure of Laura's own, and the brief moment when there was nothing else but them and the closeness of the lines of their bodies touching. Time didn't slow, and Laura felt Betsy tense, and she resigned herself to the rejection that she suddenly felt was inevitable.

Then Laura pulled away and slowly let the taller woman go. Her lips had left a small red smear on Betsy's perfect lips. The surprise that she'd earned was almost worth it alone, almost. She waited to be yelled at again, to be crushed under the anger at her audacity. Time felt like it was moving slowly and yet still it wasn't. The seconds just gathered as the two stood in the blood of their enemies, and for the first time in a very long time, Laura let herself smile.

End


	3. Epilogue

Epilogue

 _Some time later…_

Laura returned to consciousness with a sharp intake of breath. The hiss of running water sounded strange until she was awake enough to identify it as the sounds of a shower, muffled by a closed door and diffused by the strange acoustical nature common to many bathrooms. She opened her eyes and found herself looking at an unfamiliar ceiling, lying in an unfamiliar bed. As more consciousness returned she became aware of how her body ached. Laura's muscles were seldom sore and the aches she experienced upon waking up were her body's memories of old wounds that she should still be dealing with. At least she thought they were. This happened to her, sometimes, waking up with no memory of how she came to be there, her place and time in the world floating in a haze just beyond her comprehension.

Laura sat up and furrowed her brows as she fought to overcome the fog in her head. Her eyes were drawn to a ripped sheet that had fallen from the bed, and noted with some relief that it hadn't been done with her claws. Then the water in the shower turned off, bringing her attention back towards the bathroom. She breathed in deeply, taking in all of the scents from the room, now able to identify all of them: herself, sweat, sex, and _her_.

"Did you know…" the richly accented voice of Betsy Braddock drifted out of the bathroom as she slid the door open, and emerged fresh from the shower with a towel held lightly to her chest, her hair still dripping, "That those were _Sferra_ Egyptian cotton sheets that you tore through?"

Just those words were enough for Laura to finally make sense of the foggy images of the night before. With those memories came the explanation of where she was, why she was there, and why her body ached with the phantom pains made in the passion of the night.

"I'm sorry," Laura answered as her eyes slid over Betsy's body, a body that didn't heal nearly as fast as hers, and so the fresh bruises left by her hands and teeth were still there as vivid reminders. She didn't sound particularly remorseful, just as Betsy did not sound particularly upset by the damages.

Betsy approached the bed and looked appraisingly at the perfection of the naked girl laying in her bed and she did not attempt to mask her appreciation.

"I had started to think that I'd broken you," she told Laura, her voice carrying a hint of a tease.

"You did," Laura answered, and then lay back, her hair fanned out beneath her. "Will you do it again?"

And this time it was Betsy's turn to smile.


End file.
